The Old Ball Game

I think sometimes that I could go without sports entirely. Baseball is my favorite and the Detroit Tigers my team, and they're doing very well. Yet I've become content not watching or listening, just catching the scores the next day. In short, I generally feel I don't really miss even baseball.

Then I go to the ballpark. And it all comes back.

I was in Newark, Ohio last weekend visiting the famous Ohio Cosgriffs. We drove into Columbus to see the AAA Clippers, as we've done before. Waking through the gate, seeing the diamond, the deep green grass, being with family and seeing the other families and fans, the aromas, hearing the crack of the bat, watching the great plays (this particular game ended with a great diving catch by the Columbus center fielder to save a 2-1 Clippers win, with the tying run on third and the lead one on first and both likely to score without that play), and getting the Clippers replica jerseys which were being given away that night (we were stylin' I tell ya, the four of us in matching outfits); it all came back, why I love baseball.

I can't wait for the next game.

Home

He's back! Marty's back in the D, attending the grindstone after a fitful four days (I love alliteration) in New York City.

I always get a baseball cap as a keepsake when seeing a new baseball stadium. This weekend we were at Citi Field, where the New York Mets play. It was a lot easier to wear a Mets cap than a Yankees one, I'll tell you what.

No offense Yankees fans. It's just, well, it's the Yankees.

Time Does Fly

Last Sunday around this time me boys and I were setting off for the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the Cathedral Church of the Archdiocese of Boston, for Sunday Mass. It's huge, the largest Church in New England if you can believe them Catholics. Then it was off to Fenway Park in Boston for a tour and baseball game. Afterwards we did the greater part of the freedom walk to a few of the historic sites in the city: Paul Revere's home, Old North Church, and the site of the Boston Massacre to name a few. Oh, we saw the Cheers bar too, complete with a cutout of Norm at his corner seat. It was actually rather relaxed for a relatively packed day.

Fenway is a great old baseball stadium. I've been there twice now and look forward to the next visit, whenever that might be. I wish I had taken me Pops there but, spilled milk. 

We had great seats seven rows behind home plate and enjoyed a Fenway Frank, which is perhaps the best hot dog in baseball. Yes, yes, yes: Dodger dogs, Dodger dogs, Dodger dogs. But I ain't been to Chavez Ravine yet, so the taste test will have to wait. For now, the best dogs are Fenway Franks.

I actually found where you can order Fenway Franks online. But it's fifty bucks for five pounds and you are highly recommended to pay for overnight delivery, even though they pack them with coldness insulators of some sort which are supposed to be good for two or three days. That's when a fella has to tell himself that maybe, just maybe, they taste so good because of the company of my sons and the general atmosphere. Reason says they're probably not worth the expense. I gotta admit that I'm tempted to place an order though.

After Take Me Out to the Ball Game at the Seventh Inning Stretch I believe singing Sweet Caroline between halves of the Eight Inning at Fenway about the best audience participation event in all of Major League Baseball. The glance me son Frank and I exchanged as the song began (we had been to Fenway in 2016) told me he was as excited for it as I was. I'm glad me son Charlie has now experienced it too. 

I know that a big part of sports is rooting for your region. But it's nice when you're not invested in the outcome of the game, too. We rooted for Boston as they were the home nine, and they won 6-4. The Green Monster was cleared twice by three run home runs, so those were sights to see.

It is vaguely melancholy though when a trip you'd been anticipating for almost six months (our planning began right after the first of the year) is eventually behind you. Yet that feeling is far easier to deal with when you look back and have great memories. Those never leave, never grow old. And the Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise, it won't be the last anyway.

Baseball, me, me Pops, and September 27

Today it has been twenty years since Detroit's Tiger Stadium saw its last major league baseball action. I still remember the first game me Pops took me to. He wore a suit because in those days you wore a suit even to sporting events, and I held his hand as that wonderful green cathedral opened up before me as we entered the stadium through a runway. We played Kansas City that day and won 9-7.

The Tigers beat Kansas City on September 27, 1999 by an 8-2 score. Me Pops wasn't at that game (though he went the day before with a bunch of us) but I was, along with my family. It was a great if bittersweet time, capped by a Robert Fick grand slam in the 8th inning and a Todd Jones strikeout to end the Ninth and thus the ball yard's history.

Then the Tigers played Kansas City on this date in 2012. In that game, Doug Fister (on the mound for Detroit) struck out nine straight Kansas City batters to set the American League record for most consecutive strikeouts in a game. We listened to that game at the Shop, the old barn, me Pops and I hanging on every pitch as Fister struck out batter after batter. The old man laughed happily at every strikeout after about the sixth one. It was one of the best times I had listening to games with him. And though I did not know it that day, it was the last Tiger game I ever listened to on the radio with me Pops.

It's funny, isn't it, the symmetry we so often find in life. The last game at Tiger Stadium was against Kansas City. The first game me Pops took me to was against Kansas City. The last game we shared was against Kansas City. I don't about you, but, I like it.

Showing the love

Go! Cubs! Go!
Go! Cubs! Go!
Hey, Chicago, Whaddaya say?
Cubs are gonna win today!

Let me tell something about going to Wrigley Field this past Sunday: The Northsiders know how to show love to their baseball team. They play this song after each Cubs win:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9XtDyDUjIU

I got your earworm going now, don't I? Maybe I'm still basking in the glow of a great if short weekend, but singing that song Sunday was right up there with listening to Sweet Caroline during the Seventh Inning Stretch at Fenway. Those of you familiar with that just went bum bum bum, didn't you?

Baseball wears tradition like that comfortable old cardigan  you can never throw away. You might have to patch it up until the day you die but you never lose your love for it, treating it almost sacredly along the way. The same with baseball. It runs through a family thicker than blood.

It's said you can't beat the classics. I'll tell you what: you can't beat baseball. An afternoon at a Cubs game reminds you of that.

Saturday in New York

Hey Pops, how are you today?

I'm in New York City, would you believe? Frank and I went to Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. It is a gorgeous, impressive Church. I can see why you liked it. It seemed to come out of nowhere too. We were walking among all those skyscrapers and all of sudden, it seemed to me, there was a Church. As big as it is, it still seemed dwarfed by the other buildings. And it is big, as you know.

We also took in a ballgame. We went into that den of iniquity, Yankee Stadium. But I gotta tell you Pops, it's a great baseball venue. You're close to the field all the way around, and the sight lines are fantastic. You'd have liked it. You could actually follow the ball, not just watch the fielders react as you do from so many seats in Comerica. Just a good, solid baseball park.

The Yankees have this rookie right fielder, Aaron Judge, and he's a monster. Six foot seven and close to three hundred pounds. He's hit 26 home runs already, including one yesterday into the Rangers' bullpen (the Yanks were playing Texas) which I'm guessing went 420 feet. It crossed at the 399 mark in left field, so I think I'm close. It was a magnificent shot.

That was the only highlight for the home side though. Texas won 8-1. I actually felt bad that the Yanks didn't win.

I know. Fawning over the New York Yankees, their park, and their star player. I'm going to Hell, aren't I?

Maybe from your view though, you might put in a good word for me with the Almighty just the same?

Until next time,

Marty

I love baseball

I love baseball.

I love baseball because of the crack of the bat, the smell of boiled hot dogs, and the crunch of stale, salted peanuts consumed while watching a game.

I love baseball because of the Bird on the mound, Al Kaline in right, Ernie and Paul on the radio, and Willie Horton throwing a strike to Bill Freehan as he blocked the plate, causing the Cardinals to lose momentum and the Tigers to win a World Series.

I love baseball because it is the perfect game. Everyone, except the pitchers in the American league and too much of the organized game (and that is a true travesty), plays both ways, offense and defense. It ain't chess: it's more than chess. It's inspiration.

I love baseball because me Pops came out on a sweltering summer morning in North Carolina as we visited Mother's relatives one August, when no one else was up and about, even though it was already Noon, and I was tossing a ball up in the air and catching it, and he played catch with me. We threw the ball back and forth for hours, hours, until the sweat burned in my eyes, and I wasn't about to stop, because I was having a catch with my old man and I didn't want that moment to end.

I love baseball. It is the game.

The guy in the middle

Baseball gets a hold on you, and it never lets go. I have vowed at times to stop paying attention to it, as I have stopped paying much mind to other sports. Too much money involved, too much emphasis on kid's games. And then the greatest game draws me right back in.

My son took me to Fenway Park in Boston yesterday, and it was a great experience all around. We took a tour of the self proclaimed America's most loved ballpark (that might be hyperbole but it is one wonderful baseball stadium) and watched the Detroit Tigers triumph over the Boston Red Sox 4 to 2. It was a tense game which the Detroits tried to give away but didn't. Francisco Rodriguez earned a four out save as Jose Iglesias cleared the Green Monster with a two run homer in the 6th.

But to being drawn in. My first most wonderful ballpark experience was when Pops took me to old Tiger Stadium the first time. We walked down an enclosed corridor and turned left. That floor of that next, thinner corridor dipped slightly then rose, opening into a deep green panorama of seats, with an emerald green that I swear almost twinkled. To my young eyes it the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was hooked.

They've since torn Tiger Stadium down, leaving Fenway as the last classic baseball stadium in the American League. As a Father's Day gift, Frank took me there. We entered off the street and into a large corridor. Going right a few feet we then turned left into a smaller corridor which rose into a marvelous red, green, and blue panorama. Emerald green grass covered the field. I was solidly rehooked. There was a lump in my throat.

So now I think I'm the man in the middle. Between two gifts from family generations on each side of me I felt, as a 56 year old man, just like I had as an 8 year old kid. This game, it just gets to ya.